Every German ‘must try to prevent occurrence of dictators like Erdogan’

Date of publication: 20 05 2016, 15:52

On the night of May 18 German artists from the satirical project PixelHELPER have once again projected a light installation on the Turkish Embassy in Berlin.

The artists projected on the Turkish Embassy images of Erdogan, the emblem of the Third Reich near the Turkish ruling party’s logo and the phrase “Reichstag passes the power to the hands of Erdogan.”

Commenting on the move, Bienkowski explained that he and his associates seek to draw public attention to the authoritarian developments in Turkey.

“We would like to draw attention to the problems arising in Turkey following the cancellation of almost all MPs’ immunity. Erdogan seeks to transform Turkey into a presidential dictatorship. At least, the Turkish intellectuals are assessing the situation this way,” Bienkowski told Sputnik. “We wanted to take the initiative in our hands and provide Merkel with some satirical material ahead of her visit to Turkey,” he added.

“In my opinion, every person born in Germany must do everything to prevent the occurrence of such dictators and dictatorial systems. Everyone can see the parallels between what is happening now — Erdogan’s attitude towards the media, the arts and the opposition, on the one side, and the 1933 Emergency power act, on the other. We need to open the eyes of all those who deny this similarity,” Bienkowski said.

On May 12, the group also published other images of their artwork to Facebook, this time at the Saudi Embassy. Their caricatures accuse Riyadh of sponsoring Daesh, and called on the German government to stop arms supplies to Saudi Arabia.